I believe love, the emotion, the evaluation, actually comes second. I think a rational evaluation of the person according to your values is the mechanism that can make love “true.” I think, if you love someone, and the feeling comes first, and there is no rational/conceptual evaluation of the person, you aren’t really loving that person so much as creating a psychological/emotional association and dependency that has nothing to do with them. That’s the old, deeper meaning of “platonic love.” I think it’s what we today erroneously associate with true love. “Love me not for my attributes, love me for me!”
Now, I mean, if
one pretends to love another because of some insignificant temporary need like,
in example, money or hedonistic sex, that’s another story.
However, I
think when you know someone and you have that kind of respect and appreciation
for them apart from any particular thing
they do for you directly, that’s objectively valid and still an evaluation, and
that this is different from loving someone where the emotion comes before the
evaluation.
In addition, I
think for it to be love you can’t merely enjoy a specific thing someone does
for you, it has to be such that their very being who they are is of value to
you.
I think it’s
the mystic, the arbitrary that waters love down, and think an expectation for
that is why people treat relationships so pragmatically today. Much like in how
altruism, which is impossible to practice, stops people from acting ethically,
when rational-self interest could show us practical ethics, mutually
beneficial.
“Doesn’t that
sort of take away from the magic of love, if we only base our love for them on
how useful they are for us?” If we’re talking about a very specific use, no.
Those relationships are practical, but they aren't love. This is where the
elaborate nature of the concretes we’re dealing with make things appears
mystical. However, really “true” love is still ultimately based on their value
to you, just in a very ubiquitous way that makes it appear supernatural, which
is why we associate loving someone for their specific traits and the value
those show to you with a sort of pragmatic “using” someone. I think when loving
someone with an emotional love you don’t understand and can’t reduce to the
actual traits are beneficial to you is the shallow love. You don’t love them;
they just have superficial similarities to things you've emotionally associated
with love. I think that’s infatuation.
“Are you saying
it’s detrimental to believe in something non-concrete?” This really shows the
metaphysical basis of this, like all, issues. I don’t believe in concepts that
can’t be given specific and concrete representatives like “love” and
“government”. I mean they must be ultimately rooted in concretes. Abstractions
are ways of dealing with concretes cognitively; they don’t exist in of
themselves. Plato believed abstractions actually existed by themselves in
another dimension, and that our concrete world was inferior to this dimension,
and that’s why we have the term “platonic love.” It’s love that cannot be
objectively, concretely justified. Now we use it to mean love without sex, but
the idea was actually that it had nothing to do with anything perceivable about
the person whatsoever, it was mystically endowed. It was “above” the physical
world.
“And what about
when love is reciprocated? Does that mean the love did not exist, and that it
was just an illusion?” Love being unreciprocated can mean different things
depending on the context. I definitely don’t believe that you were unjustified
in feeling it in the first place because it’s unreciprocated. You don’t love
someone primarily because of his or her use to you in a romantic relationship.
You love them because the fact that they are who they are independently of you
is itself a value to you. A relationship is just sometimes the best way to
celebrate and enjoy it.
In addition -
and going back into religious concepts J - it's only love that makes mankind different from animals,
what a mother (woman) does for her child has nothing to do with what a duck
(bear, cow, dolphin) does for the newborn, as well as the conception itself,
nothing to do with "instinctual animal urges", just the will to have
a deep and long-lasting connection.
I hope that with
this explanation you will believe Michele that my love for you isn't an effect
of my injured brain and that is truly going to exists in eternity, forever. Please
let me live with you and our treasures together again.
- http://soundofheart.org/galacticfreepress/content/difference-between-human-love-and-divine-love-novice
- http://www.onbeing.org/program/restoring-senses-gardening-and-orthodox-easter/feature/divinity-human-love/1435
- http://www.divinelove.org/The-Divine-Love-vs-Natural-Love
- http://www.ascendedmasteranswers.com/spiritual-realm/divine-love/28-foundational-teachings-on-divine-love-versus-human-love
- http://psychology.about.com/od/loveandattraction/f/what-is-love.htm
- http://www.iep.utm.edu/love/
- http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/busting-myths-about-human-nature/201208/what-is-love
- http://www.piercedhearts.org/mother_adela/love_essence_vocation_human_heart.htm
- http://www.srichinmoy.org/resources/library/talks/philosophy/love_human_divine
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